[JURIST] South Korean officials announced Monday that President Lee Myung-bak [official website] plans to pardon former Samsung [corporate website] Chairman and CEO Kun-Hee Lee [JURIST news archive] on tax fraud charges he was convicted of in 2008. Lee had faced a suspended three-year prison term after an additional breach of trust conviction against him was vacated [JURIST reports]. The already lenient sentence given to Lee has been criticized [Korea Times report] as evidence of special treatment for the county's elite. Supporters hope that the pardon [Korea Herald report] will allow Lee to again assist the country in its bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, and even resume his post with Samsung. The pardon is scheduled to take effect on Thursday.

Samsung, South Korea's largest corporation, has been at the center of numerous legal battles over the past few years. In May 2007, a South Korean appellate court upheld the conviction of two Samsung executives connected with illegal stock trading [JURIST reports]. In April 2007, another Samsung executive pleaded guilty [US DOJ press release; JURIST report] to US charges of conspiring to artificially inflate the cost of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), affecting the price of personal computers worldwide. In 2005, Samsung reached an agreement [JURIST report] with the US Department of Justice to plead guilty to charges that it conspired with other technology companies to fix prices on DRAM chips.

[JURIST] The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) [official website] confirmed Tuesday that police have detained a US citizen for illegally entering North Korea. The KCNA did not disclose the identity of the individual, but it is suspected to be [US DOS release] US-Korean rights activist Robert Park. A spokesperson for Pax Koreana, a rights group associated with Park, said that he entered North Korea [Yonhap report] to protests its human rights record and to deliver a letter to leader Kim Jong Il [JURIST news archive]. The KCNA said that his entry is being investigated, but did not say how long he will be held or what charges he will face.

In August, Kim pardoned [JURIST report] US journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee [BBC profile], who had been arrested [JURIST report] in March for allegedly crossing into the country. Before the pardon, the two had been sentenced [JURIST report] to 12 years in prison. Some US commentators have suggested that the journalists were being used as pawns [JURIST comment] in policy disputes between the US and North Korea. North Korea has long faced international criticism for its human rights record, but has defended its policies [JURIST reports] before the UN.

[JURIST] British national Akmal Shaikh was executed [Xinhua report] Tuesday by the Chinese government after being convicted of bringing almost nine pounds of heroin into the country. Following Shaikh's 2007 arrest [Times Online backgrounder] and November 2008 death sentence, rights groups have urged the Chinese government not to carry out the punishment [Reprieve release], arguing that Shaik suffers from mental illness. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown [official website] has also issued a statement [press release] condemning the execution. China has defended the sentence, saying that Shaikh recieved a fair trial [Xinhua report].

China has recently faced significant criticism of its human rights record and use of the death penalty. Last week, human rights activist Liu Xiabo was sentenced to 11 years [JURIST report] in prison for subversion following a two-hour trial. His arrest and trial were condemned [HRW release] by numerous international human rights groups. Earlier this month, a Chinese court sentenced five more individuals to death [JURIST report] for their role in the Xinjiang riots, bringing the total number of individuals sentenced to death to 14. Nine of those 14 individuals were executed in November [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Afghan president Hamid Karzai [official website; JURIST news archive] on Tuesday appointed a delegation [press release] to begin an investigation of ten civilian deaths, including eight schoolchildren, that are thought to have occurred during a raid by international forces in Kunar province. The raid in the Narang district occurred on December 26th, and allegedly involved NATO forces [WSJ report], though their involvement has not been confirmed. The same day that Karzai announced the formation of the special delegation, a UN committee released figures [AFP report] that show that civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2009 are up by 10% over deaths in 2008.

Civilian deaths as a result of US or coalition forces raids are a sensitive topic in US-Afghan relations. In June, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, announced that protecting civilians [BBC report] is the top priority of US forces. In May, the Afghan parliament demanded that restrictions be placed [JURIST report] on airstrikes following an attack that resulted in the death of 140 civilians.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled [text, PDF] Tuesday that police must face an "immediate threat" from an offender before using a taser gun to subdue them. Sacramento County police officer Brian McPherson had shot Carl Bryan with a taser gun during a traffic stop causing him to fall face-first on the asphalt, fracturing his teeth and causing facial contusions. The court held that because Bryan's actions posed no threat to McPherson or others, the use of the taser was unwarranted and unconstitutional:

Although Bryan had shouted expletives to himself while pulling his car over and had taken to shouting gibberish, and more expletives, outside his car, at no point did he level a physical or verbal threat against Officer McPherson. An unarmed, stationary individual, facing away from an officer at a distance of fifteen to twenty-five feet is far from an “immediate threat” to that officer. Nor was Bryan’s erratic, but nonviolent, behavior a potential threat to anyone else... The circumstances here show that Officer McPherson was confronted by, at most, a disturbed and upset young man, not an immediately threatening one.